When self-employed software engineer Nick Benson put out the call for dashcams online, he thought he’d get maybe 10 people to donate. More than 500 have shown up on his front porch in suburban Minneapolis. “The state apparatus, of course, has cameras everywhere,” Benson told 404 Media. “The citizens will also benefit from having the same cameras around to document what's going on and making sure that everything is on the up and up.”

In early January, the Trump administration sent 2,000 federal agents and officers to the Minneapolis area. DHS has said hundreds more are on the way. Earlier this week, President Donald Trump threatened Minnesota with a “DAY OF RECKONING & RETRIBUTION” in a Truth Social post.

On January 7, two days before Benson put out his call for dashcams, ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot legal observer Renee Good in the face. In the wake of that killing, multiple people have filmed agents threatening the lives of other observers.

Benson feels like he has to do something, so he gets dashcams into the hands of people who want them. “We need more documentation showing what these people are doing. Because I don't know—other than a compelling visual documentation of what's going on—I don't know what other tools we have until the legislative branch of our government can stand up and do its job and provide a check to all of this, because our state government can't,” he said. “So all we can do is collect evidence that this is happening and let people know about it.

Benson made it easy to buy the cameras. He set up an Amazon wishlist that has the dashcams and a 256gb memory card to go in them. People buy the equipment on Amazon and it shows up at Benson’s house. From there, he reaches out to local community organizers and gets them into the hands of people who want them. “I think more than 350 of those cameras have gone out and are already deployed in the community now,” he said. “So we got them out fast, because we all understand exactly why we need those cameras, and we appreciate that support very much.”

Benson got the idea for the dashcam wishlist when ICE told local police that one of his friends was ramming their cars. “That was completely fabricated,” Benson told me. But there was no way to prove it. It was the word of the federal government against Benson’s friend. “Dashcams are the only way we can prevent that from happening.”

As ICE spreads across cities in the US and continues to disappear and kill people, citizens have taken to the streets to put themselves between the masked agents and their targets. These community observers use a variety of tactics, including blowing whistles to let people know ICE is in the area and recording everything and posting it online.

Benson runs the website JetTip, a flight alert service for aviation enthusiasts and it was through this work he first noticed how America was changing during Trump’s second term. “I got interested in all of the ICE things by tracking the flights that were coming in to take deportees away,” he said. “In addition to keeping track of those flights that are coming and going from the airport, I've been getting looped in with the community observation part of it.”

Benson lives in Burnsville, a Minneapolis suburb with a population of 60,000. He said that even here, ICE is a constant and terrifying presence. “There's more federal agents here now than there are local police,” he said. “And we know that they're not operating with respect to the rule of law. They're conducting warrantless door to door operations right now.” 

The day after Joss shot Good, Benson was dropping his kids off at school when he noticed a man running down the road. At first he thought the man was jogging. “And then half a block down the way, there was the ICE agent who was running after him,” he said. “They were just right there when I'm driving my kids to school. And it was so frustrating and violating.”

Benson put the call for cameras on January 5, but saw an uptick in donations after the Good shooting. “It was immediately clear that ICE was lying about it, and people were looking for a way to reach out and make a difference from wherever they were in their community, and that Amazon wish list was a very low friction, easy way for people to make a constructive and tangible difference,” he said. “It was more than $75,000 worth of Dash cams that have been delivered to my house here now in Burnsville.”

From there, Benson plugged into local community organizations and got the cameras into the hands of his neighbors watching ICE. “We have to teach history or someone else will teach their version of it,” Jean, one of Benson’s dashcam recipients who spoke to 404 Media on the condition of pseudonymity for her safety, said. She said that one big plus of the dashcams is that it keeps observers hands on the wheel when they’re in their car. “This was safer. A lot of people were trying to record [on their phones] while driving.”

Jean started observing and recording ICE, and organizing others to do the same, after she witnessed a raid in December. She said that ICE brought more than two dozen cars, a tactical vehicle, and dozens of armed agents. “We have to make sure people are watching,” she said. “We have to make sure we’re keeping track of our community members.”

Letty, another ICE watcher in the area, learned about the community organizations in her area after the Renee Good shooting. After getting plugged in, they told her a man named Nick was giving out dashcams. “I think they’re a great tool and beneficial to anyone who is out patrolling and observing,” she said. “Hell, I think if you’re a person of color and vulnerable to being kidnapped, I strongly believe you should have one in one in your car even if you’re not in any [observation] groups.”

Letty, the daughter of Mexican immigrants, said the camera gives her a small amount of peace of mind. “But deep down I also know agents don’t care about whether you have one or not, “ she said. “I’ll never get rid of my dashcam now though. I feel like it adds another layer of safety.”

 Benson isn’t done giving out cameras. “We need all of those cameras we can get to help the people who have the opportunity to stand up for what's right here and make sure that we're protected as best we can be from the federal government right now,” he said.

Benson said that the mood has changed in the neighborhood since ICE killed Renee Good. “My family were all immediately a lot more concerned about what I was doing, of course. It's hard when you see those videos of someone who was just out driving and ICE comes up to them and said, ‘Didn't you learn your lesson from the other day,” he said. "They're weaponizing this killing to prevent people from just existing in their neighborhood. Like, you can't even be near ICE while they're operating, because that means you didn't learn your lesson of them murdering someone who was there.”

Some ICE agents are reportedly using Good’s shooting as a threat: Videos captured by bystanders in the Minneapolis area this week shows agents asking if people have “learned from what just happened” while threatening them. 

“It's upsetting, and it's just the next step in getting kicked in the guts by these guys,” Benson said. “I don't want to get in a situation where I've got a bunch of idiots yelling at me from outside of my car, possibly with guns drawn, and possibly giving me conflicting directions where they already have the outcome predetermined and my actions won't make any difference. That's the sort of thing that makes me really nervous: that they've already decided they need to make examples out of people.”

But Benson said he won’t give up. “We can't give up, and we can't stop doing everything we can to protect our neighbors, because we can't let them win.”

And so Benson hands out dashcams. “We’re in a situation right now where the only people that are helping are just good people, normal people, standing up and helping out the best way they can. That’s all they’ve got…what a stupid situation that we allowed this to get this far.”